ORAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

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Name (Ονοματεπώνυμο): Koudounas George / Κουδουνάς Γιώργος
Sex (Φύλο): Male (Άνδρας)
Year of Birth (Έτος Γέννησης): Before (Πριν το) 1960
Place of Birth (Τόπος Γέννησης): Kyrenia (Κερύνεια)
Nationality (Ιθαγένεια): Cypriot/American (Κυπριακή/Αμερικάνικη)
Community (Κοινότητα): Greek-Cypriot (Ελληνοκυπριακή)
Occupation (Επάγγελμα): Private Employee (Ιδιωτικός Υπάλληλος)
Refugee (Πρόσφυγας): Yes (Ναι)
Language (Γλώσσα Καταγραφής): English (Αγγλική)
Related to Killed or Enclaved or Missing persons (Σχετίζεται με Σκοτωμένους ή Εγκλωβισμένους ή Αγνοούμενους): No (Όχι)
Serving the army in some capacity at the time (Υπηρετούσε στο στρατό με κάποια ιδιότητα κατά την περίοδο εκείνη): No (Όχι)
Lived in Refugee Camp (Έζησε σε Προσφυγικό Καταυλισμό): No (Όχι)

GK: Uh, currently, I am an American citizen.
GK: Uh, in 1974 I was a Cypriot citizen.
NC: Mhm. Okay and um how old were you when the invasion occurred?
GK: I was 16 years old.
NC: So you were a student.
GK: I was a student at the gymnasium of Lapithos.
NC: Endaksi. Okay. So I want you to tell me what you know about 1974 and feel free to speak in English or Greek, whatever you feel like.
GK: 1974, in July 1974 I was a student uh of the Greek gymnasium of cy- Lapithos, and during the summer months, when school is off, so July twenty -1974, eh, I was, uh, off from school and I was working with my father’s, uh, with my father who had a restaurant. And, uh, that was, it was my, that’s what I was doing when I was off, working for my father. And also he used to have, uh, lemon gardens and I would help with that.
On that day, July 21, 1974 at 5 o’clock in the morning, I woke up, uh, I opened the door and I stepped out from my house which was only 2 miles from the coast of, you know, the Mediterranean coast. And, uh, I looked towards the water, the sea and I saw, uh, a lot of ships, boats and I wondered, what’s that? And in a matter of minutes or seconds, I realized they were warships in about 5-10 minutes from the time I was trying to figure out what was going on. You know you have to understand it was 5 in the morning and I just woke up. And it was pretty bright, the sun was up and I was wondering. I said, what is this?

And then the answer arrived. You know, very quickly. The ships started bombing my hometown, Lapithos. And then after that the airplanes also started bombing. Then I knew what was going on. Of course we tried to turn the radio on to see, you know, if we could get some sort of verification of what was really going on. Because I was just guessing. And then my mother, my sisters, the neighbors, everybody was, you know, running on the street shouting, “what’s going on?” And, you know, since the whole neighborhood were relatives, um…we started wondering, what we should do? Then when we realized this was a Turkish invasion… — uh, some older people from the neighborhood confirmed it was a Turkish invasion, I don’t know how they knew but uh they told us and we believed it, because it was the only explanation — so somebody said, let’s run up to the mountains since the war is coming from the water. There was only one way to get away from it, to run up to the mountains. So I remember myself, I was, uh…wearing flip-flops, shorts and a t-shirt.

So without any second thought, all of us, created a group. My mother, my sisters, my brother and the neighbors – aunts, cousins, started walking, walking towards the mountains, which we knew very well. We knew there were some caves up on the….there was a little church up on the mountains, Saint George, Spiliotis. Where our neighborhood cemetery also used to be. Our neighborhood, St. Minas, was a small neighborhood on the outskirts of Lapithos where the border, you know, it was at the border of Karavas, the neighboring town. So we started walking towards the caves and simultaneously we saw whole neighborhoods walk up there. It was like a spontaneous thought for everyone to run up there for protection in the caves. So in about 15 minutes we all got up there, inside the cave. It was a pretty good size and it fit all of us in there.

And I remember we were 16, some of us 17, all, uh… young boys and we were very aggressive to do something but everybody tried to keep us there. And a little bit older than us, 4-5 years older, they, and I remember specifically, uh…uh…Costas, our neighbor, he kissed his wife and, I remember, he took his baby which was, I can’t remember exactly, but I remember he was a baby. Probably a few months old. He took the baby, kissed it, and gave it to his wife. And then he run down the hill with other men his age to go towards the highway so they could find a car, some kind of transportation. And go pick up weapons and try to help in any way the invasion was going on.

In the meantime, we were sitting in the cave, which it was placed direct towards where the invasion was happening. By now it was close to 6 o’clock and, uh, we watched it just like a movie. A fullscale operation from the Turks to invade the island. We didn’t know at that point if they were out. We could see they were trying to take out vehicles, uh, some older kind of maybe tanks, heavy equipment, and we saw some kind of line of, uh, vehicles and constant shooting. And it looked like it was some kind of resistance from land but it was not clear what was going on. The distance from the cave, from where the invasion was happening was about 6-7 miles. It was a clear day. Sunny, a nice summer day. Summer, early morning. The water was blue, the sky was blue, very clear, you know  - a nice day.  So…and we didn’t have any fear… uh…it was new, we had never experienced a war so, uh, we didn’t know.

I say this now and I never realized how much danger we were in. All of us, not just us. So this  was going on for a few hours. Uh, in the meantime the planes were scattered in the sky over the town and dropping bombs and shooting. Especially, if it was any car on the highway which we could see very clearly. And also we saw them target a specific point where it seemed like it was some uh…uh soldiers, Greek soldiers. They would try to put in place some heavy artillery to shoot at the boats. And it was bombed very quickly by the planes and we realized that because… there was smoke.  It was coming out from where that artillery was and there was no activity there any more. And then we saw a lot of bombing going on in the mountains higher then where we were, up on Pentadaktylos, we saw smoke, we saw some light fires and …uh it was chaos. We heard a lot of people yell, scream, cars going up and down. It was totally um…something you can’t, I can’t… As I said now, the thing that comes to my mind was that you knew the picture, what was going on, little kids crying, you know, the wives, the boys, who are taking all that bombing. It was there, uh, husbands, family members, uh…You know, the towns Lapithos and Karavas are very, you know, everybody, most of them are relatives and friends. So we knew that it was directly connected to us, if there were any casualties or injuries, we knew it had something to do with all of us. It was like watching a movie and being part of it. You know sitting in front of a TV, but you know that it was happening. It has something directly to do with you and it was a feeling you couldn’t explain at the time. But we felt the fear  - it was not pain, but fear for what was going to happen next.

So the day went on like that, and you know. We didn’t know what was going on. Like my mother left to go back to the house. We had like a … we had a small farm, chickens and sheep, some goats so my mother was worried about them, if they were going to get killed by the bombs, and since it was summer, July, it was hot. So she went there to feed them and give them some water and look after them. My father left early. You know, he used to leave at 4-430 to go open the restaurant so we didn’t know anything about my father. We didn’t know if he was part of this activity, if he came back home, if he was at the restaurant. There was not much information about what was going on about uh our family, or what we would do next or what was going to happen next.
NC: So you mean it wasn’t the whole family. There were members of the family who were not there with you at the cave?
GK: Yes, I have 3 sisters and a brother and my father and mother. My 2 sisters and my brother and my mom left the house to go up to the caves. But then my mom left and so my older sister, who lived down the street from us not too far. We didn’t know, you know, how she was. We didn’t know if her husband was there. We didn’t know how her son was. They had a little son, 2 years old, probably. So we worried about them, too. And you know, we didn’t know if it was uncertainty and fear, and all that.

So as this went on, the day, the sun started going down. It started getting dark and finally we found out that my older sister was okay.  She and her son and her husband - everybody was ok.  My father was fine, and we found out he stayed at the restaurant, and was giving water or whatever was needed to people passing by. Because his restaurant was on the highway so people stopped there. It was a center next to the bus station, so he was helping with food, with water.

So the day went on and night came and, uh, we had been told to stay in the cave, not to move. No light or fire. No light because there was a possibility that the Turks were out and they might see us. And then they would start shooting at us. So we kept quiet…eh, some of the older men from the neighborhood started taking turns to guard the cave. Nobody had any weapons. But you know just by being there it was some kind of uh security. And you know, and most of the people in the cave, they were kids and women. The young men had left. It was only a few middle-aged you know, in their 50s, and they tried to do what they could. They cut branches from the trees and they created a little cover for the entrance of the cave. And in the meantime, we ran back and forth and we brought some water, some bread so people had something to eat, mostly water, and that was how the first day found us.

In the cave without knowing what was going on with the attack, we, uh… heard more and more bombing and very loud explosions, and at night we didn’t only hear it - we could see it. And some of the, it was the hotel - 2 hotels in front of us – Zephyros and Mare Monte were being bombed heavily by the Turks, by the boats and the planes. And there was some kind of resistance from Zephyros, a brand new hotel, just finished, and it seemed like some soldiers were barricaded on the lower levels of the hotel. And we saw the intense bombing of that hotel. Heavy black smoke coming out from there. So anyway that went on. We spent the night there. My mother didn’t come back to the cave, so she was at the house. My grandmother also never came up to the caves. She didn’t want to leave the house so she stayed there. And we finally slept somehow. I think we slept. And the next day, the battle continued in the same way. We didn’t have any information that the Turks would invade the whole island, or just what we saw there in front of us. So we didn’t know and we never thought there was a need for us to leave the town because we had nowhere to go. We thought, you know, at that time it was something that would come and go, and we would go back home.

The next day we had a radio. I remember we listened to the radio. We tried to listen specifically, to the BBC for more information - for more accurate information. And the news we had was that Turkey was invading Cyprus on the coast of Kyrenia. So basically we knew we were looking at what was happening. And we realized that it was the invasion, the point where they were invading that we were seeing. By the same token they were saying they were driving parachuters on the rest of the island. And that time I didn’t have any knowledge of detailed geography of the island so you know they were mentioning towns, which I had never heard of before and especially on the Turkish side where they were talking about Kioneli and Gerolakos. And you know, to us it was, to me at least, it was something I couldn’t put in place. I just knew it was not good and since the ships were still there and they were still unloading I knew it was no good for us.

And again, we didn’t know what to do. There were only a few cars there available. So the older people started talking about how we were going to leave the town. So between us there was a quick plan to come with me, and everybody started moving back to the houses to get into cars and move out towards Lefkosia, only one way out from the town. The highway to Lefkosia. We never realized how dangerous it was to start walking back to the houses.

I didn’t see, I didn’t know where my mother or my father was, because they never came back. So, again, you know, without knowing - we didn’t know if they were captured by the Turks or if they were killed. If this was the case, and it was very possible, we’d be walking into a trap and we’d all be killed. But you know, we didn’t know what to do so we decided to walk down to the houses, get into the cars, and leave. When we got to my house, my mother was not home so I didn’t know what to do. My aunt next door, which has a car, was getting ready to leave and they had an extra seat in the car so they said to me - come with us. And, you know, your sisters, everybody else, they can go in another car. So I jumped in the car and we left the town. That was the last time I saw my family for the next few days.

My uncle Antonis, his wife Ellie, their little son Nicolas, a year old at the time, and their daughter Chrystala, a few years older than me, without taking anything left Lapithos by car. Just to get away from the fighting and bombing. So we drove through the town without any problems towards Vasilia. And that, too, was kind of dangerous because it was an open area from Vasilia to Panagra. It was just a naked piece of land stretched parallel to the coast, and if anything were to happen it would be there. But luckily there weren’t any notices of planes, no artillery so we left.

When we got to the foot, you know the foot of the mountains in Panagra where the highway was going, and that’s where the highway started getting hilly, we started, uh, seeing planes fly over us. So we didn’t know what was going on and again at that point we didn’t know if Greece sent planes or… So it was very difficult to realize if they were friendly planes or our enemy’s planes. So right before us, uh, I don’t know… exactly how many miles, there was a very very loud explosion. But it was long way back so we drove through and you know as we were driving we saw big craters along the road and some big bombs which they didn’t explode sitting, you know, on the sides of the road; bombs, the size of me. And then we realized they were trying to bomb the bridge so they can cut the…commuting the…uh, the commuting. The artery connected the county of, uh, Kyrenia, you know, Lapithos and all the villages – Vasilia, Lapithos, Karavas. Cutting that road, we’d all been trapped in our towns because that was the only road we could escape by. The other road was through the Turkish area, which we knew we couldn’t go to. And all through the mountains, which were very dangerous because they were burning, and there was heavy fighting up there. So we got to, we finally got through the mountains through Panagra. And now we felt better, because at least now we didn’t have to see or hear the fighting. So now we were driving through little towns.

And uh…uh, I remember we got into a church… uh. I remember the name of the town but we got into the church and a lot of people were there yelling to us to turn the lights out. The church was filled with people, and you know they were sleeping with blankets, you know, right on the floor and there was no room in there but somehow they found a place to sleep on the steps before the altar. I remember it was my place. They gave me that. It was the only available spot on the floor of the church right before the altar. We slept there, we slept you know.

And the next day we got up. People were talking and everybody was giving their opinion their… their side of the story. Where the Turks were, what they did and all that. So…eh, the news they would not bare was worse. So the fear now was stronger for all of us. So everybody’s thought was to run all the way up to the mountains in Troodos. It was a thought to go up there, because we thought if they took the, eh, the coast of Kyrenia, next would be Larnaca, Famagusta and Limassol. So it was better to go off in the mountains; the higher the better. So we decided to go up to the Troodos mountains. So again, we got into the car and drove all the way to Troodos. While driving, we passed all the military checkpoints to see if we had soldiers that could carry guns, and if we had they would take them and give them a gun, and send them to the front line. So since we all you knew I was too young to have one,  I hadn’t been trained, but also I was too young. They left us, you know, they left us alone so we drove all the way to Prodromos.
NC: that was the Cyprus army or…?
GK: Yes, that was the Cyprus army, the checkpoint was controlled by the Greek army of Cyprus, you know. I didn’t know much about the army those days so there were soldiers with guns and we knew they were Greek or Cypriot, you know. So we ended up at the Prodromos and we ended up at the hotel. I think it was called Veregaria? That was the hotel up in Prodromos. My uncle Antonis knew the owners of the hotel so they gave us rooms and we stayed there. A couple days went by and we didn’t hear anything about the rest of my family. Or you know what was going on in…in our hometown; if the Turks took the town or something. So we just started being up there. We felt safe for a while but we didn’t know what was going on with the rest of my family. So that it went on for a few days. And you know of course we would listen to the news. And then my aunt said we got in touch with your sisters and everything. And just to make a long story short, they said the only one who is missing is your mother, we don’t know where your mother is.  So uh that was everything - everyone started crying and this and that. We didn’t know what to think because we were all together, and we all left, so I assumed it was not good news for my mother to be missing. So that, uh, that’s the first, uh, phase of the invasion you know.

When I left and I went up to Prodromos, my sisters and their husbands went to Morfou. They moved to Morfou, which was still free. The Turks didn’t go to Morfou, so they stopped there. So that was 3 days, you know I can’t recall how many days after that my aunt and uncle decided we should go back to Lapithos to see what was going on. We got in the cars and went back to Lapithos. When we got there the town was almost empty. We just saw random old people sitting outside. But generally the town was empty. So we got to my aunt’s house um - and now I remember, it was just me and my uncle. My aunt didn’t go. So I remember I went to the first floor of the house and I saw my grandmother and she started yelling, asking where all of us had gone. She said, “you left your houses.” She said, “what are you crazy?  Come back to the house.” So I said to her, you know, “get in the car. We came to pick you up. We have to leave because the Turks are coming.” She said, “I’m not going anywhere.” And she insisted. So then I went upstairs to my aunt’s house and, you know, just by instinct, I guess, I didn’t know. I took one of the bed covers, I opened it on the floor and I threw in there anything I thought was valuable. All the silverware, any kind of jewelry I just threw it in there and I put enough so I could carry them. I tied them up and I carried them out from the house and I put them in the car. I went to our house and I couldn’t find my mother but I, you know, I saw the house was empty, the doors were open so I left. I went back to the car and we drove back to Troodos and everyone asked what happened. I said, you know, “there are no Turks in the town, but the town is empty,” and I described what I saw. Then we received some information.

My sister went back to my brother-in-law, Spyros. He went back to his house and with a truck he got some of his appliances and furniture, and put it all in the truck. You know from what I heard the Turks were up in the cave where we were, where we took refuge the first day. So my brother-in-law’s house was about 500 meters away from the cave. So that was kind of crazy just the thought, he was alone in the truck only 500 meters away from the Turks. And they said when the Turks realized, they started shooting at him so what he did… was he went to the back of the house and threw the stuff, he through the mattress into the… And I remember later on, when I saw him, he said I threw the mattresses in the truck and then I threw the appliances so they won’t break. So he took this stuff, you know, and he went to Morfou and they found a house there. I guess they were staying with friends or… I don’t remember. I don’t think I ever asked whom they were staying with. But the importance of that was that they brought their stuff there but a few days later the Turks started moving towards Morfou and they moved so fast that they didn’t even pick up their stuff again. So they left it in Morfou; they lost it there. Um, so everybody left there and they went to uh. My sisters, my 2 sisters, my father, and my brother went to Limassol.

Then the next day, I remember they said they found my mother. At Morfou where it was kind of the end of the line there, the Greek army and the United Nations closed the area and said no Greeks can go to Lapithos any longer, because there was fierce firing. So it was not safe for anybody to go back. And at that point, a United Nation tank came to the line. There they started, they opened the top, and then my mother came out. I was not there but my sister described it to me. So they were all there, the direct family - but we didn’t know about the rest of the town and family, cousins and friends. So during the first few days of the invasion that is how I remember them.  I am sure there are more things that happened, more details but you know it’s been 35-36 years and, you know, the details are irrelevant. It’s just what happened and you know that’s what I remember.
NC: So yes I want to know more about how you were feeling at that….
GK: Well, uh, from that time - from ‘74 until today - you know, 36 years went by and uh of course I’m very upset about what happened. I just don’t understand why and how in the 20th century somebody can come and take your home, destroy everything somebody has, kill people, uh, do almost anything  - it was something we couldn’t even imagine somebody doing without any reason, because to us there was no reason. I don’t understand how some people even took this for so many years and accepted this, so I’m just, I don’t know the reason, why this happened and why they took our houses and our land for 36 years. Sometimes you’re aggressive to get something, to create something and to do something with it, you have a plan and a goal. In this case, they came and took our town, and for the last 36 years the only thing they did was live in the houses they never gave us.

But we went back you know 20 - 25 years later and nothing changed, and the people that are living in our houses live in poverty. You know, we went back to see our houses and the people they were asking us for money. Everything was the way it was. Like these people living in our houses, in our town, for 25 years and nothing has improved. They didn’t take care of anything, they didn’t do anything. They just took all the goods we left. They left everything to destruction. The cemeteries were all destroyed. Corpses were scattered around. The churches were all destroyed. And, you know, in the worst…in the worst way. Like I can see how something through time, you know, to be uh from lack of maintenance or something. That’s okay. But this was intentional destruction.

The trees, the lemon trees, all the beauty of the town was left to be destroyed. So what was the reason of taking the town if you didn’t care what the town you didn’t care what was there - why take it? This is what puzzled me. Why these people came, took our land, our houses, our life without doing anything. And we didn’t have any explanation - I mean I, personally after 35 years. I didn’t get any statement by anybody saying you know I’m right, I’m wrong, you know, why… nothing.

If a criminal, if he commits a crime of any kind, you know, he’ll be punished. There’s no crime in today’s standard of life. In any country if you commit a crime, you are going to be punished. That’s why I don’t understand - if this was voted and everybody accepted this, it was a crime. Because according to every country, every leadership - this was a crime against Cyprus. And nobody recognizes what Turkey did. It was the right thing. Everybody said we are against the action of Turkey against Cyprus. Why was Turkey never punished? And forget punishment. Why was Turkey never ordered to leave and let us go back to our towns? That is my question to anyone involved in this situation, in this injustice. Why?

So. anyway. The years went by and you know of course uh it affected me personally… um, emotionally, a lot. Uh, luckily, my character is holding up and I’m ok. I can deal with it. I can just say that, I can deal with it. But. Is this the way we’re supposed to live? Is this what we, is … that’s what education did to us? Those are the developing countries? That’s how they handled it. That’s how they handled the changes of the 3rd world countries and all the democracies you are trying to spread around? Like this to me is the worst chaos - it’s worse than what it was back in the 18th century. When you allow a country to take over another country in this way, to me, we are worse than any other part of our history – you know, the last 2 years. I can’t, I can’t compare this with the Roman times or anything else.

So maybe not everybody knows this. But it happened to me, and, you know, that’s why it matters. It happened to me and another 200,000 people. It means that there aren’t enough people to spread this out there but again this is irrelevant. Crime is not measured by how many people know, crime is measured by the actions. As long as the people that are in charge know the matter of the crime, that’s all that counts. They have to enforce the rules, the law. So if this has continued for 36 years without a solution and at this point everybody knows who is the criminal and who are the victims, then what is the punishment and why isn’t anyone enforcing it? To me it just doesn’t make sense. It’s something I…uh, I don’t know what, what the, the people involved with this are expecting those 200,000 people to do.  Um, of course, uh you know…things have changed since then, but if this happened now it’s gonna happen again. It’s gonna happen again. And, you know, it will be ‘this time it was me, next time it will be somebody else.’  So that’s why people have to take responsibility when this happens to somebody else, because sooner or later it will happen to you, you know it’s a simple life… I…know it happened before me to other people and I couldn’t do anything, I was too young and I didn’t know much. That’s why it doesn’t matter today. I’m part of this; I’m a victim of this. I’m doing what I can, so this won’t happen again to anybody else and I’m against anything - anything close to something. It’s gonna happen to somebody in a similar way. So I don’t know we…we have a lot to learn. We have a lot to uh put in mind and put our thoughts how we live uh you know…if you are…
NC: Like? What is it we can learn from? What have you learned?
GK: Well, what I’ve learned from here is that you have to care. Uh what is happening around you. Even if that doesn’t involve you, you have to have an opinion. You have to help for the better of tomorrow - overall for society, for everything. Because sooner or later, it’s going to affect you somehow, it’s going to come back to you. You know, maybe not directly - but indirectly. Maybe not today, but tomorrow. Maybe after tomorrow, but for sure you are going to experience something. It will be, it will come back to you somehow. We live in a world that has become so small we cannot have apathy in the society. Generally we have to be involved, we have to care because this all ends up at one point. And it will affect all of us.

36 years later today, we realize this, at least.  I realize I have no animosity toward people who live in my house. Of course I don’t sympathize with that, but I like to know how these people take it, or took it when somebody told them pack your stuff and go to somebody’s house. Even if you don’t care and you said, you know, it doesn’t matter what they told you. When these people came to you and they said you know – “this is my house,” and some of those people said, “you know, too bad, that’s my house now.” That’s something unacceptable and we can’t sit on a table to negotiate with these people.

I can understand when somebody says you know they brought us here. If they give you words of comfort. But not to say, “too bad that’s mine now.” I can’t sit and negotiate when somebody says “too bad it happened, this is mine now.” How do they expect us to live in one country; how do they expect me to go there and work with these people? Because all right, now you know we have a solution and this and that but it’s not that easy. A solution means to live together. Live together as it happened 36 years ago. It’s gonna happen again tomorrow. What do these people guarantee me? One morning they decided to take everything I had and they killed people randomly who was there. Who guarantees this won’t happen again 5 years from now, 10 years? It’s…we’re not just after what happened in 1974. We want to make sure this won’t happen again. So the solution is very important. It’s not just to say okay, take my house, and I will take the money today and so we will forget. This is not the point. The point is if it happened before, why shouldn’t it happen again? Because there was never an explanation given as to why they came and took it – so why I am not going to, why I am so sure, how can anybody guarantee to me that this won’t happen again?
NC: Is there anything that justifies...anything that justifies what happened, that you know, the invasion had to protect, maybe, I mean.. Turkish-Cypriots?
GK:  well this is, to me, that’s politics. If it was… of course, nothing happens without a reason. But putting people’s lives on the line for politics, that is not an excuse to go and destroy a country and kill people in the 20st century. This has nothing to do with, it is nothing common with what countries and politicians usually find as an excuse to create a situation like this. This was a quiet town, county, without any army. What was the explanation to send a country of 60 million heavily armed to attack a small part of an island? What was the excuse to drop all those bombs? What was the excuse to kill the people? What was the excuse for the missing people until today and what was the excuse to kill the people and hide them for 36 years? What is the excuse of keep on migrating people into a country that has no economy? I just don’t understand. In order to create a civilization, it takes so long to create a town, a community, a country. This was all destroyed in one day and 36 years later, they haven’t done anything to correct this. So what does it guarantee; is it going to be any better tomorrow with any kind of solution – even if I give everything up and I say okay, I accept everything, let’s find a solution, let’s live in peace, let’s shake hands, what’s the guarantee that this is not going to happen again? We have a history that proves this might happen again. We have to…, we go back 300 years, specifically with Turkey, and we know the pattern. If we find a solution today, it is going to be temporary. This is going to happen again, so, what is the solution?
NC: What about the relationship with Turkish Cypriots? As a 16-year-old child what do you remember?
GK: Well, uh, the time, my time, the 16 years I lived in my hometown, the only thing I remember from the Turks – they used to come to Lapithos, the Turkish Cypriots. To me, they were no different than anybody else. They would come, they would cut their lemons, and, you know, they would leave and go back to their area, which, I never understood. I never had any…any…any problems with any of them. I just knew, they would come, and I knew, by name, who owns this and this and that and, you know, very often they would come to my father’s restaurant for a cup of coffee. And I remember specifically, Hussein, who was the only guy who would come with a bicycle and bring fresh, roasted nuts. And he would stop and I would go and buy the nuts. So, as a 16-year-old, I never experienced any animosity to give me a reason to understand why they came so aggressively to kill all of us and take over everything. This is, you know, maybe it makes sense to somebody else through history but, we don’t, this is today. This is, it was 1974. I was happy. I had everything I looked for. You know, I lived in a nice town. I enjoyed the beauty of the town. I enjoyed my vacation, my family, it was not a country where there was anarchy or dictatorship – we lived in a democracy and everything was peaceful. Now, you know, we had a coup – that was something, it had nothing to do with us. It was a political party that tried to change the government, which happens everyday in every country. It was not a reason to create this destruction. Especially when you use the name “Peaceful Operation.” What was peaceful of the whole thing? I just want somebody to say what was peaceful. What kind of peace did they bring to the island? From day one until today. What kind of peace? How did they make life in Cyprus better? Because they claim they came to protect the population and make life better for everybody. How? I just want somebody to say that was what we did and everybody lived better because of the invasion.
NC: Okay. Um, alright, I think that if, uh, I’m not sure if I want to ask you anything else..so if you don’t, if you feel like you would like to add anything…uh..
GK: Well, uh, they, if really, they want to find a solution. You know, now I’m an expert, I’m one of the parties, I’m pretty deeply involved, I lived through it, so…I think it’s time to really think about a solution. Not for what’s mine and what’s yours, because there are only two ways to solve this issue. Thirty-six years later, most of the people that were directly involved, are not alive, and that was probably the goal, to have this situation as long as they could so it will be easier to enforce the desirable solution for the Turkish…for Turkey, because I don’t see any other reason why this invasion happened. It was for a best interest, which, until today, I still don’t know what it was. I don’t know how Turkey benefited from invading Cyprus and what they, how they benefited themselves, directly or indirectly. I can only see one reason because I am sure that was a headache for Turkey, and that caused a lot of animosity and money and problems, with everything, with politics today, and before, and everything. So it’s time to put it right on the table and say, you know, we did what we did, we don’t want to know what you did, we don’t care, but it’s time to find a solution. It’s time, you know, if anybody believes in what we are preaching for a better life. Everybody’s working for a better quality of life so we have to sit and find a solution.

Now, the young generation of today, from both sides, say, let’s live together and let’s forget about it. That’s one way to do it. But if we accept that in 1974 it was not the people’s decision for this invasion, how do we know this won’t happen a year from now, 2 years from now, because people have no solution to guarantee the opposite. It will be the people of Cyprus’ decision. Whatever it will be, the solution. You can’t have the decision of England or Turkey or Greece, it has to be made by the people who live in Cyprus. Otherwise, any solution won’t be any better than what we went through in the last 36 years. It has to be something. They suffered enough. At least give them the joy of a solution, even now, even 36 years later. I don’t see any other way to solve this issue. If that - but it has to be a just solution. A solution with a good foundation to learn from what happened and what the people went through for 36 years so it won’t happen again. We saw that they opened the borders, slowly, slowly, and let people go to the other side, let people come. But again it’s a one-way solution, you know.

Why must I be punished if I visit my house? Why? I am the victim and I have to go there under regulations. Some people don’t belong to this country. They cross the borders and the checkpoints everyday, they come here and they work, commit crimes, and there is no way you can control them because at night they go back to a…a…a “country.” I won’t say a “country,” an illegal part of the island with an illegal government where they don’t know who they are, because there are no regulations on how to enter the country legally. You know, on several occasions I went to the checkpoint to see how someone can cross the borders without checking anything. Even if we accept that this is a separate country, even if for a second we say, okay, accept the northern part of Cyprus, even if we say that, just for a joke - in a place which was locked for 36 years –how can you just, overnight, allow this thought to pour into this side, like nothing happened? It’s, you know, I just don’t understand the whole concept.  It’s not – to me, it doesn’t make sense.
NC: George, tell us how you experienced being a refugee, after you left from Lapithos. You were 16 years old…
GK:  ‘74. It was July 21, 1974. It was the day on which, from 16, I..I..I grew up 20 years in one day. Because responsibilities came to my shoulders. It was tremendous. At that point, prior to July 21, 1974, everything was…my father would take care of everything. My world was just entertainment. You know, and, I, what I was going to do in the future was nothing. July 22, 1974, I realized I am responsible for me. So what that meant was I had to work, I had to live, I had to survive, I had to think about my future. The future in which it was, you know, not there. It was nothing…nothing for me to look for. So, I graduated high school the year before.  I was forced to go to high school in Limassol. You know, and not only that, because overnight we were over 200,000 refugees. They couldn’t build houses overnight. So we had to go to school at nights and on Saturdays.

So, you know, we tried to do our best. With all this, we tried to get an education under those circumstances. But, you know, in different countries they would send you to a psychiatrist to prepare you with all these things and, in our case, we had to forget about all that. Not only that, we had to work and we had to survive. So, we did that. We worked, we went to school, and then from there, what did you do? You went to the army, you had to join the army. It was all around us, we are stuck with this, so hard, so tied, we didn’t have any choice to forget about it. You know, you become a refugee, you lose everything, your friends are killed, your father, your parents they are, you know, you see them and then you… and then the next thing you can’t find a job. Then from there you graduate school. You can’t go to university, you can’t go to college, because you have to join the army. So this was a destruction from one to the next. Then I was stuck in the army for 24 months, trying to protect the Green Line. You know, from what? Thirty-six years later it proved that what I did, what we did, was all stupid. To sit there for 2 years to guard an empty line, which today…no respect. You open the lines and everyone pours on this side. I guess it was like, somebody decided to just destroy a country, stop time, and then start time again.

Now it’s okay, you have to open the borders and everything is fine. What happened to my childhood?  What happened to my friends? What happened to my property? What happened to the time I lost trying to protect this country?  What kind of a solution can we say, eh, just shake hands…there’s no…And even if we forget all that, what is the guarantee that this is not going to happen again? We want the experts, we want the ones who are trying to enforce a solution to give us some guarantee. This, you know, we live in a century where people want to be secure about everything they do, if they have their way. The same way you buy something, you want some guarantee for the goods you pay for …we want the same.  We want the rest of our lives to be secure somehow, at least from the elements we cannot control. It’s the same for both sides.  And again, I would never accept a solution personally, if we don’t have the armies move out of Cyprus. It’s not because…if we are talking about peace, we should not have armies. If we believe these communities can come together, there should be no need to have an army and guns.  For the same reason it had started, when Cyprus became independent. It was saying, you know, they agreed. Cyprus can have independence. And this is the route; we should go back to that. But going back to that, we should go back to everything. Give the people’s properties back, give the people’s houses, give…give something back to them, so they can say, okay, I will accept this solution. You can’t just ask the people who lost everything to give something they don’t have because we have nothing. You’re asking us to give what, what we don’t have right now.
NC: Okay.
GK: And, you know, we didn’t just sit back. I finished the army, I worked, and I decided…I have to make it. So I went overseas and I work. I work, I did what we…I could. You know, it was not just me.  Those 200,000 people they went overseas. Nobody sit there, saying, you know, I, blame anybody…we went and we work.  We came back and we rebuilt the country from where it was left.  And we did; we reconstructed it. To me, you know, we built something, we created something. And now Turkey, it comes, and it claims also this.  Indirect, all this time, after 36 years, they decide they want a solution.  Nah, they want to take the wealth we created on this side also. That’s how I see it. They have to prove they’re in for a real solution this time. They have to give.  They have to give something. And, you know, we’re asking them to give something that is not theirs, it’s ours. Just give something back. Take the immigrants away from Cyprus. Take them, it’s easier for those people to be told we will build houses for you somewhere else than to tell me.  And to me…everything. It’s a satisfaction, justice, whatever you want to call it.  It’s very simple. If tomorrow, people received their properties, it would be the first and best step to a solution. That’s how I see it.
NC: Okay, thank you.